Celebrate Irish American Heritage

An open book with the Irish flag as the background.

Bearing Irish ancestry or not, people all over the U.S. will be wearing green and celebrating with friends on St. Patrick’s Day. If by the luck of the Irish you find yourself time to read today, make sure it is from one of these 9 novels about Irish Americans.

Cartoon of a smiling man with a large mustache, short dark hair, wearing a teal jacket and a white turtleneck.
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Book cover of "Murphy's Law" by Rhys Bowen, featuring a woman in period dress with the Statue of Liberty in the background.

Murphy’s Law by Rhys Bowen

Fleeing a false accusation of murder in Ireland, Molly Murphy becomes involved in another murder case when the man who was harrassing her on the boat to America turns up dead.

Cover of "The Streel: A Deadwood Mystery" by Mary Logue featuring an old photo of a woman in black and white.

The Streel by Mary Logue

Brigid, an Irish immigrant fleeing the potato famine, must clear her brother’s name and manage his mining claim in Deadwood, South Dakota after he is suspected of a grisly crime in the first novel of a new series.

Book cover of "Ashes of Fiery Weather" by Kathleen Donohoe, showing red curtains and a city skyline in the background.

Ashes of Fiery Weather by Kathleen Donohoe

A multigenerational tale about the passionate loves and losses of women in a family of firefighters traces their experiences spanning from famine-era Ireland to Brooklyn a decade after the September 11 attacks.

Book cover of "The Blessings" by Elise Juska, featuring a sepia-toned family photo in the background.

The Blessings by Elise Juska

After losing her husband, John, Lauren Blessing and her two young children come to rely heavily on her husband’s large, close-knit, Irish-Catholic family amidst all their moods, triumphs and trials.

Cover of the book "We Are Not Ourselves" by Matthew Thomas, showing an urban building facade with large geometric shadows.

We are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas

Raised by her Irish immigrant parents in a 1940s Queens apartment where alcohol and company combine in mercurial ways, Eileen marries an unambitious scientist with whom she endures an increasingly psychologically dark family life.

Illustrated book cover showing a woman holding a child with a ship and Irish harp in the background, titled "Gone to Amerikay.

Gone to Amerikay by Derek McCulloch

This sweeping, century-spanning graphic novel explores the vivid history of Irish émigrés to New York City via three intertwined tales, from a penniless woman raising a daughter alone in the Five Points slum of 1870, to a struggling young artist drawn to the nascent counterculture of 1960, the year America elected its first Irish-Catholic president.

Cover of the book "Fever" by Mary Beth Keane, featuring a woman in a dark dress with hands tied behind her back.

Fever by Mary Beth Keane

A fictionalized account of the life of Typhoid Mary, an Irish immigrant who moved to New York at the turn of the century and became a successful cook, until the Department of Health noticed the trail of disease she left behind.

Cover of "Days Without End" by Sebastian Barry, featuring a pastoral landscape. Award logos are visible at the bottom left.

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

Entering the U.S. army after fleeing the Great Famine in Ireland, seventeen-year-old Thomas McNulty and his brother-in-arms, John Cole, experience the harrowing realities of the Indian wars and the American Civil War between the Wyoming plains and Tennessee.

Cover of the book "A More Perfect Union" by Tammye Huf, showing an upward-looking person against a clear sky.

A More Perfect Union by Tammye Huf

A young, Irish immigrant fleeing the potato famine takes a job as a blacksmith on a Virginia plantation and falls in love with a black slave, in a novel inspired by the author’s great-great grandparents.

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